The future of Hemalurgy

[Jofwu]

I was thinking about this yesterday... Hemalurgy comes across as such a monstrous form of magic. But it is super powerful, and we see at least a few "good guys" who are interested in dabbling with it. Taken at face value, Spook's writing about taking from the elderly and terminally ill is pretty creepy. But I started thinking how modern medicine and society might change to accommodate Hemalurgy.

With superior anesthetics and better surgery practices, Hemalurgy could become a fairly normal practice. Think about it. Of course there would be laws that doing it against somebody's will is wrong. But certainly some people who have powers would be open to passing those powers on, right? Particularly if they can pass it on to a family member or friend. Or donate them to a perceived noble cause (scientific research, the military/police/government, etc.). Hemalurgy could be used to do a lot of good. So you fill out the legal paperwork, and when you're on your deathbed and have said your goodbyes a surgeon comes in, knocks you out, draws some blood to store the spike in, takes your powers with a small spike, and then they let you pass.

Boom. Humane, ethical Hemalurgy.

Now the fire department has some F-cadmium or F-gold spikes to help their men get in and out of burning buildings more safely. The police force has some A-tin and A-pewter spikes to keep the streets safer. The hospitals have F-copper spikes so that doctors and surgeons have a wealth of easily accessible knowledge. And scientists can being investigating the magic systems more methodically.

And of course, an even better solution for the Feruchemical uses is to pair it with advances in unsealed metalminds. Grab some aluminum and nicrosil spikes and you can start pumping out unsealed metalminds to do all of these things. Make these people compounders and they can really go to town.

[Nashan’Elin]

I like this idea a lot. Instead of donating your organs to science, you can carry something that lets emergency responders know that if you are fatally injured, you have Metallic powers that you are willing to pass on to someone else. While it does seem a little bit brutal, as the person still needs to be alive in order to have their powers spiked out, I would imagine the in-universe equivalent of morphine or a similar painkiller would be administered before the spiking. 

[+hwiles]

It's definitely a complex ethical dilemma but, in some regards, voluntary hemalurgy is sort of like signing up to be an organ donor or agreeing to donate your body to science after you die.  Given the potential rewards, Scadrians could reasonably conclude that "humane-hemalurgy," is more virtuous than repugnant.

Sanderson has left plenty of fodder here for hemalurgy to become a major and central issue for modern-day scadrial.  It opens up the possibility of widespread metal shortages as, after generations of hemalurgic inheritance, virtually everyone could have some level of allomantic or feruchemic ability.  Scadrian magics have the benefit of functioning for their practitioners anywhere in the cosmere, so I wouldn't discount the idea of Scadrians being forced to find new worlds to trade with and settle once they've depleted their native metal reserves (do The Ones Above ring any bells?)  We also know that there are plans for Scadrians to eventually develop interstellar travel, so I don't think this is far-fetched at all.

Hemalurgy gives Scadrians the potential to greatly increase their number of magic users and exponentially increase the rate at which they deplete their planet's non-renewable resources; all the while fueling scientific and industrial advancement.  Some questions related to the future of hemalurgy that come to mind:

• The act of Compounding is using allomancy to draw on Harmony's investiture to fuel your own feruchemy.  What happens to Harmony when there are many compounders storing his investiture in their metalminds?
• Hemalurgy is no longer a secret, criminal organizations are using it.  As the knowledge of hemalurgy spreads how will Scadrian society govern and regulate its use?
• So far Scadrians have played fast and loose with regulating how allomancers and feruchemists use their powers, but how long can they afford to do so before they are forced to intervene?

Edited January 31, 2017 by hwiles

[Pagerunner]

Ooh, boy, it's time to tread very carefully. I wouldn't be so quick to call it ethical and humane. In real life, euthanasia is a fairly controversial idea, hinging on the difference between allowing a life to end and actively ending a life (which is what Hemalurgy does; even if the person gets spiked without dying, they are 'worse than a drab') and on the societal ramifactions and pressures that legalizing it would place on certain communities. The utility of those powers, great though they may be, does not change the underlying ethics of whether or not it would be moral to end the life of another, even according to their wishes. I expect, if Hemalurgy ever enters common knowledge like Allomancy and Feruchemy, that it will be viewed by a large number of people as inherently immoral, that the action of tearing apart someone else's soul is outside the authority of mankind to do to one another in any circumstance.

Brandon has had his characters espouse things that are outright immoral before within the context of those stories. Kelsier was a murderer. Stormlight characters are racists. Brandon writes flawed characters, so it's important to not filter a moral exploration through the lens of 'the main characters are always the good guys.' I think we will see a lot of beneficial applications of Hemalurgy going forward (the Southerners, especially, and Kelsier himself of course), but that doesn't mean the ends justify the means. I've been an eager proponent at times that I think the Southerners need to use Hemalurgy (calling spikes Excisors) to create and fill their medallions with any level of effectiveness. But I also think it's an atrocity; I held the same views towards expecting the Mistborn serial killer planned for Era 3 to not be a natural Mistborn, but to be an artifical one created by Hemalurgy. (Not sure if I espouse that anymore, because of BoM revelations.) It's a likely plot and worldbuilding hook, but in-universe, it is a bad thing. You can look throughout history to see things that were considered beneficial to the community at the time, but are now considered immoral. (Uh... let's try and pick something that's not too controversial at this time... how 'bout eugenics? There are better examples, but they'll probably be distracting, so feel free to insert an accepted-at-the-time atrocity of your own.)

There are ways to practice Hemalurgy that minimize or even eliminate human suffering. But does everyone agree that is the goal of ethics?

[Spoolofwhool]

You wouldn't even need to just spike powers. You could conceivably expand to spiking human attributes for slight enhancements. Mental fortitude might protect against emotional allomancy, strength to get an edge, etc. Why stop there though? Maybe there are even some animalistic traits which can be used (I think it was said you can take animal attributes. Makes sense since they have innate investiture as well.).

However, I agree with Pagerunner that it would likely never become something that is majorly considered ethical. Deliberately destroying someone's soul likely be frowned upon by many. I could be wrong though; I can't remember off the top of my head what the views of the different religions are towards the soul and its purpose post-death. 

Also, I'll nitpick that theyou wouldn't be letting you pass after they spike out your power, the spiking would be making you pass on.

[Itchy Savant]

A lot of people might also be very against the idea of having someones "spirit" stapled on to them.  In fact I could see that causing a whole of political and social turmoil as people with spikes are hunted and brutally killed on the streets.  One political party is pro another is against and suddenly its civil war/rebellion.

I wouldn't be so quick to rule out hemalurgy being used in everyday life even while the debates about it are going on. Many things like euthanasia and (sorry to bring this up, not here to talk ethics, just stating examples) abortion.  There are people who support both sides, and its legality varies from state to state, province to province and country to country

Side note: After a few hundred more years do you think Harmony's intent will stop him from communicating with spiked people? He has to maintain the balance 100% and can't do anything at all.  That would definitely make it harder to stop the widespread use of it.  Also creates a cool possible plot where a spiked character starts hearing a voice, who is calling himself god, in his head.

[Yezrien]

Just a thought to consider: I believe WoB acknowledges that hemalurgic boons might be heritable:

Quote

INTERVIEW: Oct 14th, 2013

Steelheart Signing Report - Shardlet (Verbatim)

QUESTION

If you have a series of inquisitors, like a family of inquisitors having children for generations over...

BRANDON SANDERSON

Would the Hemalurgy influence the sDNA of the children? Is that what you are asking? That is a hypothesis that has merit in the way the magic system works (grin). It is not a supposition to be discarded out of hand

Which, of course, has implications on both sides of the ethical argument. If you're against soul-mutilation, then this makes it even worse: you're not just stapling someone else's soul onto your own, but onto your children's souls as well. (Assuming you have children after being spiked, of course.)

On the other hand... what if an old allomancer is dying, childless? His valuable invested genes would be lost. The overall Scadrian genepool would be diminished, magically speaking. And today (circa BoM), that might not be so terrible. But we all know Scadrial will face strange new threats in the future. The day may come when allomancy is a more precious resource than spiritual propriety.  

Edited January 31, 2017 by Belzedar

[+hwiles]

I suppose I agree that at least some portion of Scadrians would refuse to accept Hemalurgy on moral/ethical grounds, much like the how real people react on both sides of each of the many controversial social dilemmas we face today.

On the other hand...knowledge of hemalurgy is spreading, and criminals are using it to achieve what could be described as an unfair advantage over society at large.  Outlawing a practice isn't always enough to keep it from happening.  Completely suppressing all knowledge of hemalurgy doesn't seem viable at this point, so Scadrians, as a people, will have to come to some kind of decision as to whether to attempt to regulate its use as ethically and morally as possible, or to attempt to expunge and prevent its use somehow.  Given that Southern Scadrians seem to be making at least some use of hemalurgy already, I lean toward the former, but an epic showdown between the two continents is a viable possibility in my mind.  I suppose we'll see.

Now, how could hemalurgy be discouraged or prevented in a technologically advanced Scadrial you ask?  Well:

1. Store allomantic bronze into three big blocks of etmetal at the center of a city/county
2. Feed the etmetals' bronze-seeking outputs (that include both direction and type(s) of investiture used) into a computer (actually, relatively simple circuitry and logic gates could work I think, so this wouldn't need to be that high-tech)
3. Use the output to triangulate the position of magic users in the area affected by the etmetal
4. Flag all instances of 3 types of Investiture being used simultaneously and have the device calculate and print out the coordinates of all such events for police to follow up on.
5. Get a search warrant, and frisk everyone in the area.  Not a perfect system, but it would put pressure on hemalurgists and give authorities a way to gradually home in on them

Additionally, it might even be possible to simply identify if a person is using hemalurgy through subtle nuances in the bronze pulses they emit.

[+hwiles]

2 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Ooh, boy, it's time to tread very carefully. I wouldn't be so quick to call it ethical and humane. In real life, euthanasia is a fairly controversial idea, hinging on the difference between allowing a life to end and actively ending a life (which is what Hemalurgy does; even if the person gets spiked without dying, they are 'worse than a drab') and on the societal ramifactions and pressures that legalizing it would place on certain communities. The utility of those powers, great though they may be, does not change the underlying ethics of whether or not it would be moral to end the life of another, even according to their wishes. I expect, if Hemalurgy ever enters common knowledge like Allomancy and Feruchemy, that it will be viewed by a large number of people as inherently immoral, that the action of tearing apart someone else's soul is outside the authority of mankind to do to one another in any circumstance.

A thought just occurred to me - We know that Hemalurgy can be used to spike an ability away from someone without killing them, though it will damage them greatly.  But what if after they were spiked, the spike was put back into them...?  They could then keep their ability and go on living until they die of natural causes, at which point, they could leave their spike(s) to whomever they choose.

This isn't a perfect ethical and humane solution, but what do you think about it as a compromise?  I'm not sure I could imagine people objecting to a practice that is voluntary, non-lethal, and potentially more-or-less non-destructive to the host.

[Landis963]

All 3?  That wouldn't catch someone who only spiked allomantic or Feruchemical powers, and not both.  

[Yata]

25 minutes ago, hwiles said:

A thought just occurred to me - We know that Hemalurgy can be used to spike an ability away from someone without killing them, though it will damage them greatly.  But what if after they were spiked, the spike was put back into them...?  They could then keep their ability and go on living until they die of natural causes, at which point, they could leave their spike(s) to whomever they choose.

This isn't a perfect ethical and humane solution, but what do you think about it as a compromise?  I'm not sure I could imagine people objecting to a practice that is voluntary, non-lethal, and potentially more-or-less non-destructive to the host.

It's still almost always lethal.

I can't actually say someone Spiking himself and losing some of his soul (in the best outcome) for the chance to gift this power to someone else in the far future...notice also that this kind of "premature spiking" exposes you to all the Hemalurgy's problems (magical and social) without any benefit.

[Itchy Savant]

I have always felt that the Scadrian tech is going to stem from Hemalurgy.  I believe there is a WoB that states our code monkey main character of era 3 is a Nicroburst.  All she has to do is touch her computer and give it a nice boost of processing power

Sorry for the side post but @hwiles post made me go there  

[Kingsdaughter613]

I think it may well be legalized in a similar manner to organ donation. Whether or not it is ethical will likely be argued by many in world characters.

One possibility is that the Survivorists may allow it, depending on their reaction to Kelsier's use of it. That would be a major shift from the RL Catholic Church which does not allow euthanasia. This opens the possibility of greater acceptance. (As an aside, I REALLY want to see how the Survivorists react to the Sovereign...Major theological upheaval incoming!) The Southerners, if the excisors are spikes, are clearly somewhat comfortable with the idea. (I rather think that the Southerners fire parents are reusing the same spikes over and over.)

However, there would likely be many major laws about when and where Hemalurgy can be used. And terrible penalties for violating the laws.

[+robardin]

An obvious problem with a philosophy allowing Metalborn abilities to be viewed as "resources" to manage and harvest via hemalurgy is that, well, Metalborn people will become resources that are managed and harvested via hemalurgy.

Which is what The Set seem to be doing. Why do you think they were kidnapping the Allomancers (and possibly Feruchemists) in Alloy of Law? They weren't trying to "breed" a Mistborn, but assemble one with hemalurgy. And why target the women? The conclusion is, they're being forced to broodmare a few more Metalborn before ultimately being harvested.

I just can't see Harmony acceding to the factory farming of Allomancers and Feruchemists. He may be committed to a policy against direct interference on Scadrial, but he uses agents like the kandra and people like Wax ("his Ruin") to effect his will.

 

[Itchy Savant]

4 minutes ago, robardin said:

I just can't see Harmony acceding to the factory farming of Allomancers and Feruchemists. He may be committed to a policy against direct interference on Scadrial, but he uses agents like the kandra and people like Wax ("his Ruin") to effect his will.

 

Is that what Sazed has been doing with the extra ruin? or is that a theory/simple comparison?

[+robardin]

11 minutes ago, Itchy Savant said:

Is that what Sazed has been doing with the extra ruin? or is that a theory/simple comparison?

"Extra Ruin"? You mean, what would naturally coalesce as atium?

I was just referring to a passage where TenSoon says to Wax about how Harmony operates through agents, that "I am his Preservation, you are his Ruin".

But I have wondered about how (a) it was mentioned by Someone Who Would Know that it would take "over 300 years" for the atium to start reappearing after Kelsier pulled his Allomancy stunt at the Pits of Hathsin, and (b) the final book of the Era 2 trilogy (or quartet) is going to take place about 340+ years after the Catacendre and (c) will be entitled "The Lost Metal". Hmm.

[Itchy Savant]

Preservation is left fundamentally weaker than ruin due to his creating human sentience, So someone asked if Harmony was totally balanced and he replied along the lines of harmony is doing something else with the extra ruin. I forgot about that quote with Soon. My bad

[Spoolofwhool]

There's also another WoB that Harmony repossessed the pits where atium formed and the Well. Therefore, it feels unlikely that atium is the lost metal, especially considering how strongly it has been broadcasted in earlier books. Not impossible mind you.

[+hwiles]

1 hour ago, Landis963 said:

All 3?  That wouldn't catch someone who only spiked allomantic or Feruchemical powers, and not both.  

Bronze Seekers can detect both Allomancy and Feruchemy.  Each etmetal block would detect all uses of any investiture (assuming they were strong enough to pierce copper clouds).  You're right though, they would actually be catching people who are using 2+ forms of allomancy or 2+ forms of feruchemy simultaneously; my simple off the cuff explanation failed to point this out.  Now, I'm assuming that bronze seekers' ability to detect distance/direction is subject to some inherent level of uncertainty; to combat this, you could use multiple seekers and average or triangulate the true location of the event, but it's not clear if this would even be necessary.

If you maintained a registry of twinborn in a city you could also detect if any combinations of powers are popping up that shouldn't exist in your population.  I don't mean this system to be a fool-proof method for instantly identifying and apprehending hemalurgists.  It would just give authority figures a tool to exert pressure on hemalurgists, limit their power and ability to affect society, and gradually root them out if they aren't careful.  Sure, a subtle and clever hemalurgist who was familiar with the limits of the technology being used to police their area could go undetected indefinitely, but only if he/she limited their hemalurgic activity, took precautions to hide their nature, and refrained from upsetting society too much.  If they did that, then they probably don't really need to be apprehended anyway, so no big deal.

My point is, Scadrians could develop reasonable and effective methods through which hemalurgy could be regulated, suppressed, or policed without making any outrageous intellectual leaps.  There are also ways that they could use hemalurgy that, depending on your personal beliefs and values, could be described as humane, virtuous, and selfless.  I suspect advocates of both approaches will rise, fall, and confront each other as this situation continues to evolve.

@Yata I'm not proposing that a young and healthy metalborn would reasonably consider spiking themselves so their powers wouldn't be lost if they died unexpectedly.  I'm not advocating or endorsing the practice, however, I could understand, on an intellectual level, how someone who was older, sick, dying, or particularly concerned about their legacy might choose to undergo the necessary hemalurgic procedure to ensure that their powers will continue to live on once they're gone, particularly if they could live through the procedure but also even if they wouldn't.  If nothing else, the controversies and twists we have stumbled on in just a few quick posts is proof enough that the future of hemalurgy is worthy of exploration in later Mistborn eras.  You've opened a mighty-fine can of worms @jofwu 

[Pagerunner]

3 minutes ago, hwiles said:

If you maintained a registry

4 minutes ago, hwiles said:

reasonable and effective methods

3 hours ago, hwiles said:

frisk everyone in the area

I gotta say, this sounds awfully authoritarian.

[+hwiles]

Just now, Pagerunner said:

I gotta say, this sounds awfully authoritarian.

Ha, yeah...I promise I'm not actually an advocate for this type of authoritarian and evil empire type of practices irl...I think it would make for an interesting evolution of the Mistborn universe for these issues to be confronted in some capacity is all.

Basically, I see a lot of creative opportunity in hemalurgy, both as a magic system, and as a mechanism through which characters can be confronted with completely new and complex social and philosophical issues that develop organically from already-established in-world elements.

[Voidus]

I think the most likely need for developing Hemalurgy will be as a deterrent, if the Southerners start extensively practicing it, along with their already far more advanced magitech in the medallions then the northerners might feel too threatened to not supplement their own forces with more Allomancy and Feruchemy through the use of Hemalurgy. Immoral? Sure, but civilizations have done plenty of immoral things before to save themselves. And some of those things are still being debated today as to whether or not we need them.

[Oversleep]

I feel there was already a thread about this with some good ideas inside. It was about medallions vs spikes.

I will shamelessly link you to my post in that topic. Here.

[Jofwu]

On 1/31/2017 at 10:45 AM, hwiles said:

• The act of Compounding is using allomancy to draw on Harmony's investiture to fuel your own feruchemy.  What happens to Harmony when there are many compounders storing his investiture in their metalminds?
• Hemalurgy is no longer a secret, criminal organizations are using it.  As the knowledge of hemalurgy spreads how will Scadrian society govern and regulate its use?
• So far Scadrians have played fast and loose with regulating how allomancers and feruchemists use their powers, but how long can they afford to do so before they are forced to intervene?

Great questions.

• I'm under the belief that Harmony's investiture being used by people doesn't mean he's losing power of his own. I think it just makes him more... invested in Scadrial. More connected to it.
• Society would definitely have to evolve to accommodate it.
• This is true, but it's also not quite a modern society. I think in Era 3 we'll see MORE rules, laws, regulations, etc. The days of coinshots damaging streetlights to get around will be mostly over. At least in the nicer parts of town. Hooligans in the hood will still do it.

On 1/31/2017 at 10:48 AM, Pagerunner said:

Ooh, boy, it's time to tread very carefully. I wouldn't be so quick to call it ethical and humane. In real life, euthanasia is a fairly controversial idea, hinging on the difference between allowing a life to end and actively ending a life (which is what Hemalurgy does; even if the person gets spiked without dying, they are 'worse than a drab') and on the societal ramifactions and pressures that legalizing it would place on certain communities. The utility of those powers, great though they may be, does not change the underlying ethics of whether or not it would be moral to end the life of another, even according to their wishes. I expect, if Hemalurgy ever enters common knowledge like Allomancy and Feruchemy, that it will be viewed by a large number of people as inherently immoral, that the action of tearing apart someone else's soul is outside the authority of mankind to do to one another in any circumstance.

You make LOTS of good points, many of which I was considering as I started this topic.

Yes, calling it "ethical and humane" is very controversial. I went ahead with the wording for the sake of making my point though. The whole idea here is that society will have to change to accept the use of Hemalurgy. My goal here was mostly to paint a picture of what that society might look like.

The change (if it comes) definitely won't come easy. Euthanasia was strongly in my mind as I started this, and you can count me as someone who's very uncomfortable with the idea. But I think society IS pushing in a direction where it's more acceptable. The same thing is happening in many scientific areas. Things like stem cell research, cloning, any kind of human enhancement... Our society is ultimately going to become more comfortable with these things to some extent. Euthanasia in particular has gained more support in Western society. Throw in the incredible benefits of Hemalurgy, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this being a real controversy in the Era 3 timeframe. By the time of Era 4 I think it will be considered acceptable.

I definitely don't mean to wrap it up nicely and pretend this is obvious and clean and easy. It's a fascinating ethical problem. But I DO think this is where Scadrian society would eventually head. The benefits are tremendous, and it does boil down to euthanasia. (with a big bonus) I don't imagine this... procedure would be incredibly common. But with the potential of unsealed metalminds it doesn't have to. Surely you're going to have somebody with powers now and then who's moments from death. Why just pull the plug on life support when you can (with their permission) put them to sleep and take their powers (for the good of mankind) first?

On 1/31/2017 at 11:59 AM, hwiles said:

Now, how could hemalurgy be discouraged or prevented in a technologically advanced Scadrial you ask?  Well:

1. Store allomantic bronze into three big blocks of etmetal at the center of a city/county
2. Feed the etmetals' bronze-seeking outputs (that include both direction and type(s) of investiture used) into a computer (actually, relatively simple circuitry and logic gates could work I think, so this wouldn't need to be that high-tech)
3. Use the output to triangulate the position of magic users in the area affected by the etmetal
4. Flag all instances of 3 types of Investiture being used simultaneously and have the device calculate and print out the coordinates of all such events for police to follow up on.
5. Get a search warrant, and frisk everyone in the area.  Not a perfect system, but it would put pressure on hemalurgists and give authorities a way to gradually home in on them

This is a really fun concept.

It's highly possible that ettmetal (and other unknowns) will generate some incredible ways to get around the need of Hemalurgy. If that's the case, Hemalurgy would definitely not go the direction I've described. But until we see some other proof of concept, the uses of ettmetal are pretty mysterious.

On 1/31/2017 at 2:30 PM, robardin said:

An obvious problem with a philosophy allowing Metalborn abilities to be viewed as "resources" to manage and harvest via hemalurgy is that, well, Metalborn people will become resources that are managed and harvested via hemalurgy.

This is true, but then criminals can do that anyways if knowledge gets out (which it probably will before long). If it becomes more common it will require laws.

On 1/31/2017 at 3:42 PM, hwiles said:

You've opened a mighty-fine can of worms @jofwu

My pleasure!

[Shadeshadow227]

On 1/31/2017 at 11:35 AM, Itchy Savant said:

I have always felt that the Scadrian tech is going to stem from Hemalurgy.  I believe there is a WoB that states our code monkey main character of era 3 is a Nicroburst.  All she has to do is touch her computer and give it a nice boost of processing power

Sorry for the side post but @hwiles post made me go there  

Ettmetal's Allomancy usage isn't Hemalurgy. I do not know what mechanism allows Ettmetal to be "primed" with Allomancy and Feruchemy, but it isn't Hemalurgy. Although...that does give me a few questions about how Ettmetal could potentially be utilized in machinery...